Slovene, n. and a.
(ˈsləʊviːn, sləʊˈviːn)
[a. G. Slovene (Slowene), pl. Slovenen, ad. Styrian, etc. Slovenec, pl. Slovenci; the name is a survival of the old native designation of the Slavs, which appears in OSlav. as Slovēne, and is supposed to be derived from the stem of slovo word, sloviti to speak.]
A. n.
1. A member of the southern Slavonic group of peoples, dwelling in southern Austria and in Slovenia (formerly part of Austria, now a constituent republic of Yugoslavia); formerly also called Wend (Wend n. 2).
| 1883 Morfill Slavonic Lit. x. 248 The Slovenes belong to the eastern..branch of the great Slavonic family. 1887 Encycl. Brit. XXII. 147/2 The Slovenes have preserved an old form of the family name. |
2. The language of the Slovenes.
| 1911 Encycl. Brit. XXV. 245/2 Except for a few 15th-century prayers and formulæ we do not find any more specimens of Slovene until the Reformation. 1960 O. Manning Great Fortune iii. 174 David smiled down modestly. ‘My Slovene is a little rusty,’ he said. 1972 W. B. Lockwood Panorama Indo-Europ. Lang. ix. 161 Slovene is the official language of the Constituent Republic of Slovenia. 1980 English World-Wide I. 256 Of the remaining essays not involving English, most are on minority languages, such as..the individual cases of Slovene in Southern Austria. |
B. adj. Slovenian; Slovenish.
| 1902 Q. Rev. July 169 The equalisation, in all public offices, of the Czech and Slovene languages with the German. |